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Tag Archives: children

I was a precocious child growing up. My father, who had a doctorate in geology, would treat me like a little adult, a pupil-in-training.

I vaguely remember skimming over Goodnight Moon and Cat in the Hat, but what I really remember the most is Sherlock Holmes.

When other kids were talking about My Little Pony or GI Joes, I would listen for hours on end to my father reading the words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I was intoxicated by learning new words like “grotesque” or “purloined.”

Those are fond memories of childhood, stretched out on the lawn of the library with my father reading about the Hound of the Baskervilles or the evil Professor Moriarty.

My father would also read me the adventures of Tintin and Asterix (often in French, translating into english after each frame of the comic strip.) Such charmed summers, without a television, surviving the sweltering Wisconsin heat by taking literary adventures.